Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Ethical Monotheism and Personal Transformation

[Music] everyone hope you had a wonderful inspirational Emporium not getting too drunk and mr. Shem we are now entering the weeks before the Gullah before the redemptive period of Nissan and BS rata Seamus cuz I'll say although mushiya can come every day of the year except on Shabbos on yom tov but nissan is the most Masuka month for the Gullah so we hear us on that indeed it should be the month of Gollum what I want to talk about today is really the very first word of the third commish we began kameshwari grrah vara is also given the name by hazael Taurus calling him the laws of Kohanim because it deals with corbino's and as I'm sure you've learned over the years there is a fundamental my cloak as we shown him regarding Corbin house why does God like carbon oscar burners are described as ray acne halwa a pleasant fragrance it is described as left-hand God's bread God's food God's meal certainly God does not necessarily like barbeque or roasted meats and if God wanted roasted meat he could have created his own he could have created some extra cows so what is the tackle it's what is the purpose of a of carbon outs and the turkeys into such detail so there is a fundamental mock locusts the Rambam Maimonides in the guide to the perplexed actually says a very astounding proposition although it's quite logical in some way he's basically says God does not care about car bonus at all the problem was that corbino's were part and parcel of idolatrous rituals and the Jewish people be both before mocked on Torah and aftermath on Torah were very a Duke they were very connected to the pageantry to the ceremony to the physical beauty of all of these rituals which of course involved in some cases not only animal sacrifice but even human sacrifice and if God were to simply tell us to go cold turkey meaning to say stop the car burnouts we would not have been able to do so we were too attached to that modality of worship so goddesses were regulated and tolerated the institution of carbon notes as a mechanism to wean us away from the excesses of idolatry that is Maimonides position into the guy in the guide to the perplexed now rom ban na commodities takes very very strong issue with the Rambam and he raises a number of very powerful questions if carbon notes are merely a concession to the idolatrous impulse why would we pray for the restoration of carbon notes when Messiah comes aren't we better off without it aren't we engaged in a higher spiritual form of worship that focuses on prayer and meditation and mitzvahs and yet the Mustapha burning very clearly prays for the restoration of animal sacrifices moreover we find that Adam re shown according to the Midrash kaien anta Bell brought score Binoche the Torah says and God accepted heavens offering which was an animal offering of wrong get stuck in Yaakov built altars so you see in other words that carbon out seems to be something important to God wholly apart from weaning ourselves away from the excesses of idolatry so because of this the Rambam adopts a very well-known psychological idea and that is carbon note are beloved to God not because God loves roasted meats but because the carbon note effect a symbolic transformation of the worshipper of the concept is that I bring a carbon I put my hands on the carbon the carbon to some degree becomes my substitutes and then I realized there but for the grace of God go go i and as a result I become humble I've become submissive I become changed I become a subservience humble Evert Hashem and that is what gives a Shem knocketh that is what gives a Shem pleasure not the carbon but the transformation of the worshiper through the bringing of the carbon and that is the Reyat Nicola and indeed the Rambam points out that is why the very word for sacrifice Corbin comes from the verb like a dev to draw near to God it is a vehicle of drawing near to God now this can explain a very interesting phenomenon you know the reform movements I don't know if it still uses the moniker but it used to go by the name prophetic religion they used to like to call themselves prophetic religion now what do they mean what did they mean by prophetic religion because if you look at the words of the navien they are always knocking corbino's they're always kind of saying who needs your korban if you will press the widow and you don't take care of the orphan and you don't feed the poor who needs it so the reform movement take took those verses and kind of basically said God does not care about ritual he only cares about social justice and that's what the prophets mean when God says I don't want your carbon I just want you to take care of the widow and the orphan and free the debtor etc but the problem with that analysis is that although it is indeed the case that's an idiom talk about social justice quite a lot one cannot deny that that Bane Adamas cavero interpersonal human relationships of kindness were very very very important to the naveen because they're important to God but in the VM also talk about sharpest and carthoris and sexual immorality and tourettes America meaning they don't only emphasize being Adama cavero they also talk opener mm uncle but the only Mitzvah they knock they do not Kerberos they don't knock Shabbos they never say oh if you oppress the widow why keep Shabbos we normally don't go with that philosophy we normally say well listen even if you're not doing one Mitzvah that doesn't mean you shouldn't do another Mitzvah but when it comes to carbon note there actually is a linkage and the linkage is if you're not behaving morally God doesn't want your Corbyn that is a unique concept to korban that doesn't apply to Shabbos doesn't apply to Congress it doesn't apply to other things and each llama hemella in the book of michl a summarizes this idea with the verse Zeva Risha in the sacrifice of an evil person toeyvah is an abomination to god it's an extra sin it is a sin of bringing a sacrifice now why would that be so why wouldn't we look at a core bond the same way we look at Shabbos and Contras in other words yeah you're doing some sins in some areas but that shouldn't disqualify you from bringing a Corbyn so here you know we have to understand this idea that we often say Avraham Avinu is the first Jew now that's a bit of an ambiguous phrase what do we mean he's the first Jew there was no Tory yet etc but it is true that he was the first person with whom God made a covenant that was restricted to a certain family unit God made a covenant with Noah but that was a covenant with all of humanity the very first time God chose a segment of humanity for a special covenant Oh relationship was God's Britt's god's covenant with Avram so in that way Avram is the first person who had a unique covenantal relationship that did not extend to the entire human race what was a Brahma Vino's great contribution so it is commonly said that he was trying to teach the world ethical monotheism now both of those words are very important monotheism that there's one God and not a multiplicity there is one supreme creator and Avraham Avinu saw this in the order of the world in the structure of the world he saw the evidence of a single intelligence and that of course was the great teaching of monotheism but we also have to understand that there's a great significance in the word ethical monotheism you know it's a commonplace in our thinking that religion is concerned with ethics whether we live by it or not is another matter Judaism links religion and ethics Christianity links religion and ethics Islam links religion and ethics whether they live by it or not is another question but at least on the books it is almost a self-evident proposition that a major idea of every religion is some type of ethical moral behavior and we take that as self-evident that's what a religion is but you know it was not always the case in the pagan religions religion and morality had nothing to do with each other whatsoever the gods whoever they were did not care if you were moral or ethical because they themselves were not moral or ethical and if you remember your Greek mythology from elementary school and you read about Zeus or in the Roman incarnation Jupiter well these were a bunch of like Superman supervillains who went around raping pillaging murdering dismembering so there was no guy loose didn't care if you were honest in business or kind to the poor that was simply something he was not interested in he was interested in you're flattering him glorifying and bowing down to him bribing him etc now I'm not suggesting that there was no such thing as a moral pagan there were there you know there may very well have been pagans who were moral but they were not moral because of their religion they were moral either because they were naturally moral or they were moral in spite of their religion their religion had nothing to do with morality now that means in effect in the ancient world what was the function of a sacrifice it was not supposed to transform you in any way a sacrifice was the equivalent of mafia protection money you want to pay off Zeus so will either help you or at least he won't injure you when you want to take advantage of somebody else so now let's go forward when the Torah created this idea or eyebrow thought this idea of ethical monotheism that God is less concerned with power and more concerned with morality and goodness and kindness and compassion the purpose of a carbon as na commodities rights is not to give God a gift but to effect a symbolic transformation of the worshiper making him more humble and creating greater kindness as he becomes more submissive to God if I bring a carbon and it does not affect my character I bring a carbon and I continue to oppress the widow and cheat the orphan then I am viewing the carbon as a mafia payoff as a result not only is the carbon spiritually worthless the carbon itself becomes offensive and sinful to God because you're treating God as if he was the Godfather so to speak right making you an offer that you cannot refuse and and and the like so that is why there is a special condemnation of a Corbyn because when you bring a carbon and you don't use the carbon as a vehicle of self transformation then you are demeaning the Almighty in the very act of bringing the carbon because then you're paying off God as if you want mafia protection yes well yeah yeah that's a good point the Rambam does say explicitly that when Messiah comes we will continue to bring core partners in fact it's a cash on the Rambam himself that is reason why should we that's indeed a question but the Rambam himself says we do and that's because even when Messiah comes although the world will be much much elevated there will still be the idea of growing in the service of God so it will not be so much I sinned and now I'm doing Childre but rather I will continue to grow in my worship of God and on that level at the altar everything your rights even the perfect sadiq always has true ver to do because there's always a higher and higher level in infinity to extend in your worship of Hashem so essentially as the Sabich grows in perception he realizes the way he served God yesterday was inadequate compared to a yester servant day so that's a type of Chuba that doesn't involve sin but it involves heightens perception and heightened awareness but be it as it may were still left with a real good question on Maimonides formulation that if carbon notes are simply a concession to wean us away from idolatry then why should we have them when Messiah comes so I don't want to get into this and great length it's not the main thing I want you to talk about but I just want to point out that some have posited that the guide to the perplexed was written for a specialized audience like who who were the people who were the intended readers of the guide you there perplexed people who were very conversant in philosophy which in the Middle Ages meant only one thing Aristotelian philosophy that was philosophy in the Middle Ages whether Jewish Islamic or Christian or non-believer Irish title was the mixing my metaphors the holy grail of philosophy and as a result they were and of course Aristotle was based on very rigid syllogistic logic in fact the very laws of logic were formulated by Aristotle and as a result there were many people who were quite sophisticated in their understanding of philosophy and the tenets of religion did not make sense to them because many aspects of revealed truth were contradictory the logical postulates of Aristotelian philosophy so these are the perplexed these are the confused that the Rambam is addressing and as a result the purpose of the more renew him was to integrate to synthesize to resolve tensions and contradictions but philosophical truth and the tenants of revealed religion and that was the ROM bombs attempt to create that synthesis and when he felt that there was a contradiction he endeavored to point out the philosophical errors in Aristotelian philosophy in other words he attempted to essentially justify the Torah by making it consistent with that type of rationalistic tradition as a result some have posited that when the Rambam gave reasons form its votes he did not intend to give the total reason he intended to give reasons that would be accessible and acceptable to those who were raised on rationalistic premises and therefore the Rambam tried to factor out mystical or deeply spiritual ideas that would not be necessarily for a person who was not yet within the community of the faithful but the Rambam would admit that indeed there were deeper reasons that he was not going to address yeah well no not not necessarily that would be the case if the Rambam gave reasons that he believed were false but that's not the argument in other words the rom bombs point does have legitimacy but it is not the exclusive point meaning to say core burnout did indeed serve the function of weaning us away from idolatry so the Rambam did not make a false statement but he made an incomplete statement and that that's that's a very different type of of argument it is not a condemnation if a person offers a select number of reasons and not give reasons that he felt his audience would not yet be able to appreciate after all on some level the Torah has infinite levels of meaning and obviously we're only exposing any tip of the iceberg at any given moment in time yeah yeah well that's a good question of course the ROM ban was a Kabbalist and some of this might have been traditions that were handed down alternatively once again this you know you could call this a speculation or a hypothesis and coming from the rom bond we give it great deference and respect it may not have been some empirical certainty that he had proved I mean I don't think generally when you look at the various thoughts that commentators give I don't think they necessarily in any particular empirical proof that that is the way it worked in in reality but certainly it's reasonable and I will give you I will give you some empirical proof from an article in Psychology Today that I read around 25 years ago I still remember this article this was an article about a mild-mannered Chicago accountants Jewish accountant who lived in Chicago and on weekends he went on the wild wolf they say he went for a walk on the wild side and he was a high priest in one of these Caribbean cults that does animal slaughter now unfortunately this part idolatry voodoo voodoo and all this other stuff and he would put on the robes like Big Kahuna you put on garments and he would slaughter not cows but he was slaughtered goats and sheep and chickens and they would bring offerings to whatever it is they worship now that article was basically focusing on the question how can a twas 20th century that how could a 20th century college-educated professional be involved in animal sacrifice that sounds pretty primitive that sounds pretty bizarre and the person described his feelings and his emotions as he participates in these very strange rituals almost as if he had memorized the RAM bonds description he was describing the idea of being unified with the universe connected to the cosmic life feeling as the blood is oozing out that's there but for the grace of whoever he's worshiping it wasn't done about Shem so to speak you know goes him and therefore he said he remembers something to the effect that if I'm taking this animal's life it better be for a good reason it's better make a difference I better make a difference so he was describing a power that's very very foreign to us because the vast majority of all of us have never experienced this and we tend to disparage it as something primitive although we know it's a mitzvah etc but emotionally certainly most of us are not looking forward to crib owners I think I could safely make that statement meaning on an emotional gut level hopefully we're looking toward forward to motion for various reasons but to say British em I can't wait till they're going to decapitate that sheep you know and then take out the entrails etc most of us on an emotional level are not yearning for it so much and yet and yet that article taught me that indeed there's a tremendous spiritual power in these rituals that we have forgotten in fact it's an amazing thing we tend to look at not that we were ever primitive socially but we tend to look at more primitive cultures as being primitive and inferior to us but in many many ways as we get more civilised there's a lot of things that we lose I met a woman a few months ago this is absolutely very very amazing she was going through a process of conversion maybe she already converted I don't well you know I thought you know I'm talking about you know you introduced me to her and she had spent the first fifteen years of her life or something like that and I mix her parents were Christian missionaries and she was really living among Aboriginal people people who had no civilization no sense of time no sense of technology totally separated from the world and her parents were like the first like foreigners who ever even set foot there and she was raised for fifteen years with people who were totally cut off from any type of civilization and you can look at them as really not much better than animals no they had no knowledge no learning and yet she described I think she wrote a book about her she described the amazing abilities these people had they could literally almost talk to the birds they understood every movement of animals and plants and what it meant and they could predict things they could see things they could see patterns in nature that we just are totally unaware of by looking at where a bird was flying they knew how to that were lost in a forest how to get out of it so in truth civilization has a lot of trade-offs it's a very very funny thing we become more sophisticated we become more knowledgeable we pick up a lot of book learning there are a lot of things we can do but there are many many processes that get lost in the shuffle now maybe I'm comparing apples and oranges I don't mean to suggest the Jewish people were primitive etc but carbon notes are one of those things in which there is a power a spiritual power in these rituals that we literally have just forgotten we just don't know what that is and we can't automatically explain it rationally because that is kind of the downside of the legacy of Athens Athens elevated rationality as the highest quality of the human being and Judaism to a large degree took that over although Kabbalah is a big exception to that but in reality there are other facets of human existence and person that also have a tremendous tremendous power so I'm not suggesting we should take off our clothes and and go back to the jungle but there are just amazing aspects of humanity that can exist under these amazing again I thought I thought this was an absolutely amazing amazing story and an amazing set of set of observations you know that just give you another little example Annapolis the Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland is actually older than the United States I think it was founded ten years before the Declaration of Independence or something like that for the training of British colonial naval officers and for more than 200 years a required course in Annapolis was celestial navigation in other words how do you navigate a ship by the Stars now in the mid-1980s after more than 200 years they discontinued the course in celestial navigation because they said there's no need for it now everything is done by computer there's no need for anybody to look up into the Stars and figure out where to go now um I said that's not totally true because computers do conk out and sometimes it is helpful to have the residual Talent but putting that aside that actually means a whole branch of human knowledge simply is going to disappear because nobody's going to know how to do it another example although maybe it's less important can't find a good typewriter repairman right the old typewriter in ribbon you know I think the last value is like 95 in Manhattan or because some people still like to use there are some people who for superstitious reasons maybe they only want to work on a typewriter huh now how do you write Luddites right now how do you find somebody to put in the ribbon right so there's still like 95 year old guys around or in New York City if you look I'm sure other cities as well if you look at the old apartment buildings they have beautiful stone masonry kind of carvings and graving x' but sometimes the weather you know requires some update or repair where do you find a good stonemason can't find they don't exist anymore once again some old Italian guys are still doing it when they die a whole branch of human artistry human talent simply leaves the world so the truth of the matter is civilization does have its costs and I think corbino's are one of the things that in our intellectualization in our rationality we've simply lost the sense of power so the ROM bonds point is quite deep actually but it may be a deep point that we don't necessarily appreciate to them say and now are you saying it specifically with respect to this muck locus right you're saying a general point you know it is always possible there there is no question let me put it there was no question that the rom bombs overall orientation was very very heavily influenced by Islamic philosophy because indeed that is how the Rambam received Aristotle I mean the Rambam did not read Aristotle in the Greek the Rambam read Aristotle via the Islamic philosophers Avicenna of eros all of those fellows and the Rambam even indicates that a number of his letters and in the gadget of perplexed his admiration for a number of the Islamic philosophers as well as his criticism of others so there so there is no question than that that there was a very very strong influence now I think the influence of Christianity on Ramban is much less I I think the Ron bond kind of disassociated much more so than the round bound visa vie Islam but yeah I think there certainly is a point I mean you know many people have suggested that the reason Ashkenazi jewelry bans polygamy in Rubino Gershom say edict and Sephardic did not is precisely the difference in Christianity which prohibited it and the Islam which did not so there's obviously going to be some issues of influence in that particular situation okay okay well this was a long introduction this was not the topic I intend to talk about so let me go to the topic I want you to talk about that is the very first word of the Book of Leviticus is via Creole Moshe God calls out to motion calling him by name may Moshe well you're da bearish ma love and Hashem speaks to him from the oh hell no age from the Michigan from the tent of meeting so Rashi already comments that normally when God speaks to Moshe all we have is the standard formula when you're da bearish ml Moshe lamer God speaks to Moshe why Viagra what is this funny grub thing so Rashi actually says this is not unique every single time Hashem speaks to Moshe he first calls him by name the Torah says it once not because there was something special about this time but this is the source of saying that it happens everywhere else and it's a matter of derech Eretz you don't start talking to somebody until you've identified them by name in other words I don't just say start talking to you I say hey George so you know that I'm directing my remarks to you right so according to Rashi vehicule Moshe is not unique to this situation it is simply exemplary of the idea that whenever a Shem spoke to Moshe there was something that was called crius shame rom ban takes issue with Rashi and the rom ban says no there was something unique about this particular time and in order to understand this you got to go back to the end of the book of schmoes in the end of the book of schmoes the Mishkan is finally erected this is Rosh Hodesh Nissan the Michigan is erected the Torah says at the mouse that when the Michigan is erected a cloud of glory surrounded the Michigan and the fire of Hashem was within the Michigan this signifies the mahkum of the Shekinah the Shekinah is inside so to speak and the cloud of glory is the darkness that covers up the Serena it's very similar to at Mount Sinai itself our scene i Hashem Shekinah came down at her scene I and it was covered with a thick cloud so the RAM bond says very pushes even moshe rabbeinu is not allowed to enter the place of the Shekinah without getting permission from uh shem remember what it says by rc9 firecrochet me love God gave him permission to go in so the rom ban says that's exactly the case here if Moshe is going to enter the Michigan to communicate with God at a time when the Michigan is filled with the fire of God and the cloud of glory viagra is giving Moshe permission so the rest of the time the divine fire was missed elec it was not in the Michigan all the Somoza could enter whenever he wanted but when the Shekinah is tangibly there by Ikra God has to give Moshe permission and that's only this time once Moshe got the permission he could go in whenever he wanted so it turns out we have a relatively technical Mallika's between Rashi and RAM bong as to what is the significance of Hashem calling Moshe by name before he speaks to him according to Rashi this occurred every single time that Hashem spoke to Moshe he first called him by name it's a way of affection it's a way of showing love it's a way of acknowledging how important and precious somebody is that's Russia's view of IOL Moshe according to ROM bond the interpretation is different motion needs permission in order to enter the camp of the shekinah and once the michigan was built rosh chodesh nissan and it is filled with the glory of hashem moshe can only enter if there is reshoots viagra is this isn't in the Sinatra shirts and anything are me once that Richard is given it doesn't have to be repeated Moshe has a standing invitation to be able to enter now as I say this on one level is a technical interpretive my focus but one might suggest that it is actually a very profound view of different perspectives of how we connect to God let's let me first use the ROM bond because in some ways that's gonna be that's going to be a simpler explanation essentially the ROM bond is teaching us a lesson in spiritual life you cannot enter into a relationship with the shekinah until the God gives you permission to do so now that's an important lesson because human beings many people are spiritual we want the connection with God but often we find that a spiritual temperament is very impatient with the details of Harlech observance because they feel that the details of a lock like observance are too obsessive they are there's too much minutiae a there's too much technicality and they want to connect to God without all of these rules and all of these regulations and how does ripping not dripping toilet paper on Shabbos bring you closer to God an example let's say Zaman creation rather Sh'ma hat in the morning has to be read before the one fourth of the day so now it's around 8 o'clock right approximately so let's say at 8 o'clock I'm dead tired and my Kriya Sh'ma is gonna be superficial and my creation is not gonna have cabana and if I sleep another two hours I will speak to God with love and with awe and with reverence so a person might take a very legitimate philosophical attitude and says listen if the most important thing is my connection with spirituality my connection with God then what difference does it really make if I do Sh my day Jewish might attend the main thing is the relationship but that's a very big mistake that's what the Rambam is teaching us you want your relationship with God it has to be on God's terms God defines the parameters of the relationship some of comparative to modern technology in many many ways modern technology can teach us spiritual lessons that we otherwise would not be cognizant of let's imagine you're typing in an email address or a website there that's 30 characters and the first twenty nine are 100% correct but the last one is the wrong character you type in the comments that have a period or whatever it is and the message doesn't go through now you might get angry and you might say 29 out of the 30 letters or writes isn't that good enough what's going on and the answer is nope you gotta be exact it doesn't work if it doesn't if it's not exempt having a mezuzah that is 99% kosher he's not going to help you just like an email address that's 99% accurate he's not going to help you right now this is a very fascinating discussion because if you go back to the early years of the Hasidic movement this is what was perceived actually as perhaps the central danger in casitas and it was perceived as such not only by the Mossad in like the Vilna Gaon and with crime of illusion it was perceived as a danger even by the ballot Anya if you learn the Tanya you will see that the Tanya is addressing to different audiences the tanya is address well exactly I think he's addressing three audiences he's addressing the Hasidim who want to follow his guidance he is trying to refute the miss snog them that are against what he's trying to teach and he is also trying to refute other streams in Hasina's that were saying things that he regarded as extremely dangerous and in particular what he regarded as dangerous and what the Vilna Gaon and would have hime of a legend regarded as extremely dangerous I'm going to use a fancy word but I trust that you all know this word but I'll define it anyway the antinomian tendencies of the mystical temperaments and he know me and it simply means against law against regulation the mystical temperament doesn't want boundaries it doesn't want rules it doesn't want technicalities it wants a complete relationship with God not having to worry about this rule or that rule or this ritual and that ritual a person wants a passionate love and our relationship with our cutters for now on one hand this is exactly what we should strive for it this is a beautiful this is what life is about but the danger is it could lead to a rejection of Torah a rejection of Allah a rejection of rules a rejection of sack so what the ballot Anya writes that is why the ballot Anya writes in spite of the fact that it is central to the Tonya that love and fear of God fear meaning reverence and that fear so much reverence bring your Mitzvah Stabbin that's that passage from the ZOA but he makes the following point just like in a bird the wings are not the essence of the bird the essence of the bird are the body and the head the wings are the mechanism to enable that body to be transported so to the religious emotions are the wings that lift you up but without Torah and mitzvot there's nobody without toran mitzvos you're dead all you have are wings without a life and that's why the by Latonya writes over and over again Hamas awaken and by the way that's why I say when you learn these types of books it's very very important and helpful to connect it with the history of what is going on at the time the marring of Oakland for example to understand the historical issues the Bala Tonya to understand what was going on in other casita now this is the very beginning right the antinomian tendencies of some Hasidic leaders I mean there are passages in the more of a shemish that are almost frightening in terms of the idea that a great Sadiq main does may not have to keep the Torah because they're above the Torah right well more of a Shemesh is actually very classic aesthetic work but there are passages were the more of a shemish suggests that a person can be a Sadiq above the Torah that the tourists kind of the common denominator for the average person but there is such a Nevada that can supersede the Torah again these are very very explosive dangerous ideas so the Rambam and they've let me give you a good example of climber one and they're never chef I am was written of course by refined Volusion who was the Vilma Gon's greatest disciple and refined the legend had a very different emotional approach the Vilna Gaon simply put the classic movements in the playroom he excommunicated them refined vulajin ER had a very warm and cordial relationship with casitas he did not it's very interesting in spite of his tremendous reverence for the room the gown he never signed a single document of excommunication against glossiness and it's still a bit of a mystery how we could simply reject the more militaristic aggressive approach of the bill McGann but for whatever reason listen he was a guttural in his own right he made his own decision he decided to approach this in a kinder gentler way but he makes these points in the nefesh i''m that you have to do mitzva you can't just allow love and reverence to take everything over and he gives an example a pesar example let's imagine pay stuff is coming I don't want to scare you pace that who's coming indeed and people are cleaning so hard for paisa especially the women but hopefully good supportive husbands are going to help out as well and by the time the Seder night comes you're dead tired you're exhausted you know people fall asleep during the Seder and the four cups of wine certainly do not help and you know you're not really inspired necessarily you're too dead tired so what if somebody were to say you know listen we've been working hard the whole month maybe even longer why don't we just go to sleep early tonight and after a really good night's sleep tomorrow morning we will make the most magnificent Seder that was full of Torah and you know the insights and feelings of redemption well you might feel real real spiritual having that wonderful Seder the day after the Seder it's supposed to be but have you done any Mitzvah at all no you haven't right so you have to understand where claim says the most lofty cover nuts are not going to help you if you're not doing what our Jim wants you to do now I'll tell you something very funny I was I once used this muscle from the nefesh a fiim years ago I was speaking to a non religious group of people the people who were not yet from and one of the women said oh yeah we did that one year we couldn't get the family in for Pesach so we decided to make the Seder a week later a week later and it was the greatest Seder you ever saw it was just fantastic everybody was so enthusiastic and so happy and you know we had matzah mrs. F is already after your pacer we had matzah and more or you know and everything else so this is an example of life imitating art switch recliner illusion are used as an example of absolute absurdity is actually done right so there is nothing that is so crazy that it's not going to be tried somewhere and by somebody so I think what we get from the ROM bun is of kind of illusions points in the ballet Tonya's point you want a relationship with God you want to enter the mahkum Hasina because that's what it is you want to ensure the a relationship with the Shekinah you got to follow the rules you need God's permission and the Torah and the mitzvot and the halacha are the mechanisms by which God gives you access to a relationship with him that is what I think emerges by implication by symbolic implication of the ROM bonds notion of nutella's reshoots however Rashi may be giving us not a contradictory perspective transfer Shalom but a complimentary perspective create Jim calling a person by name now what is a name a name by definition is that's which separates me out of a group we have a group of people but if one is an opera me it's okay Yaakov emotion and that's Terry Devorah that's separators that endeavour individuate cyou that gives you a sense of individual identity exactly i resell rights that when parents give a Jewish boy a name at a bris it is actually a prophecy from God which is expressing the spiritual root of the child's neshama now we don't know enough about what these spiritual roots are to know what is an operon versus emotion we don't really know what that means but even if the parents think they're naming a master uncle Abe that's what the parents are thinking in reality there's a route to the neshamah of Avraham Abena whatever it would be now what that means when people have more recent Israeli names let's say somebody's name is Elon well bury Lonnie Lana's a root the tree right what what exactly does that represent that's a whole other question but nevertheless it's a navour katana and because of this because what happens at a bris is said to be a prophecy some have said that even when there's a mistake in the calling of the name you cannot correct it I'll tell you two stories that I witnessed personally and they happened the same week with the same receiver and there were two opposite opposite results Story number one is the grandfather was honored the mother's father was honored with naming the baby and the mother's father did not like the name that the parents had chosen his daughter and some of my chosen so when he when they gave him the name they whispered he just gave a different aim he named it after his father or something and I still I still remember hearing from the answereth machine from the women's section the the woman the mother saying no you know that wrong name and there are Shiva postions if this is what was proclaimed at the bridge Mila this was the will of Hashem and this is the child's name this is what he said now that's the first myself that I witnessed now just a few days later I was at another bris with the same Russia Sheba and here the person who was naming the baby didn't hear the month you know the father whispered the name and he didn't hear it correctly so he said the wrong name and then they said no you that's not the right thing and they corrected it and there were Shiva said well if it was a mistake you can correct it so one might say is there is there a steerer here is there a contradiction here well one way of looking at it is the receiver got so much flack from the mother the first thing you decided I'm not gonna do this again that might be no that might be one interpretation to be sure another interpretation might might be that there's a difference between a conscious deviation and a mistake a mistake doesn't countable because there was no intention ma Sharon Cain the name er consciously intends now that's that's a little scary according to that sack I don't know if it is abstract really you got to be careful who you honor to name your baby I mean he could pick anything they could pick whatever he picks is gonna be the name because that's called God's decree okay it was misciagna yeah yeah but so here the concept well that's a good point that is a good point if he was a it could be so maybe when I said it's not correct it could be that a grandfather because been a Bonnaroo Bunyan may indeed have a power of naming independence of shillelaghs so that's a very good point if it wouldn't have been a grandfather in fact that might be the answer to if it wouldn't be the grandfather than a Nanami then you can't deviate from the parents because you can only do it via parental authority that's that's that is another that's an interesting point okay but be it as it may the point I'm simply making is a name is reflective of your individuality and your uniqueness so if the rom bonds idea is you want your relationship with the shekinah you need God's permission and that refers to obedience and submission to the whole logic rules and technicalities Rashi is making the point that when you serve God you should also serve God as an individual with your uniqueness your individuality your creativity Hashem does not want automatons Hashem does not want homogeneity now it's true that to be a religious Jew there is a great deal of conformity that is required by definition a religious Jew we have to keep Shabbos we have to keep kosher we make breakfast we'd oven we weren't filling we observe the laws of Pesach and Cara's we don't March by our own drummer that's the idea that you want a relationship with God you got to follow God's rules but within that framework Rashi is saying we also have to cultivate the ability to as individuals you know people often I know I many of the Tommy diamond are Sameach although not all are people who were raised for non religious backgrounds and as a result there were many many different things that they they've done in their lives and when a person comes into a yeshiva environment there is sometimes pressure sometimes external but often internal to kind of give up and amputate certain aspects of the personality that may not fit the standardized definition of religious culture so if somebody was a poet or a musician or an athlete even no give it up give it up just cut it amputate it get rid of it it's not a yeshiva thing to do it's not what the high rate e world does it's not what the religious world does and the like now it's true then obviously when a person assumes religious commitments some things might have to be given up I mean if somebody was a new dancer in a nightclub you know we would have to make some adjustment there you know we couldn't just say go ahead and keep you know keep up the good work but one has to understand that if if there were aspects of one's life that reflected their creativity their individuality their talents their abilities that gives them joy and fulfillment then those two are gifts from God that are supposed to be part of how you serve like others work so the idea of Chuba is not so much disregarding your past but rather reclaiming your past and using your past as the foundation for the uniqueness of the identity that you are creating so when you look at let's say a 20th generation you show me when you say they have so much they have so much useless so much tradition so much Torah going back hundreds and hundreds of years and Here I am from South Dakota or wherever it is what do I bring to the table and I'm nothing well there's another way of looking at it and that is it's true that that's 10th tenth generation you shall me has many many treasures that I'll never really have to the same degree but it's also true that the person from South Dakota has special treasures that the 10th generation you saw me doesn't have because it was after all a college bar crew that decided where we would be born and what our formative experiences would be and if he put us in that situation it must be that that is what our nationís needed to create the foundation of who we are you know I have a little bit of a pet peeve when you know the great receiver of the Mir yeshiva Reb Nelson's to be Finkel mr. crenell abraca died a few years ago and again he was really a very heroic figure he suffered from multiple sclerosis for a number of years and he continued to run the Yuja Shiva and collect money and give seorim he could barely talk he could barely move and he just forced himself with unbelievable devotion and good spirit and simcha really his whole life was an inspirational story but putting aside the issue of his health which again is a gigantic major issue he grew up he grew up in a religious family he was not about yoga but he grew up in Chicago and he went through coed coeds Jewish high school he was on the basketball team he was on the debating team all of these things and he came to Erica's rally he became the receive of the know biggest receiver in the world watch of Shiva and when he died very tragically so all of the eulogies were making the same point over and over again and they said look at what a person can become even if he comes from a destructive evil non spiritual environment he came from garbage I'm paraphrasing a little bit and look what you can become you can become great in spite of an environment that was devoid of real holiness and condition now since I came from an environment that's roughly similar to his environment so I was little I was a little offended you know III don't I went to a colored day school etc and then I grew up in a place that actually had much less taller than Chicago I did Hartford Connecticut and I tell you what all my memories are only positive positive and good because you know we've learned to have us you saw there are many many things that we learned so if you knew Rev Finkle if he knew the Russian Shiva you would know that one of his unique abilities was the ability to relate to American Jewish teenagers of all stripes so if a modern kid comes in and he's in this he visits the mirror yeshiva and like how is he supposed to relate to this mirror Shiva and the receiver could talk to him about oh yeah what position in the basketball team do you play you know I was Center I was forward well I don't even know the management positions etc and he could relate to these kids and they could look at a gut Alberto and they could say wow even if you play basketball and even if you're on the debating team and even if you saw girls in high school you can still become a great great Thomas Holcomb so my revolutionary suggestion is that part of his greatness was not that he repudiated his background but he took his backgrounds he was great because in part at least because of his backgrounds and not in spite of his background and what this is telling us is for all of us we don't amputate their life you know when you amputate your life it's like you're amputate in your arm sometimes you have to do it indeed just like an arm could be gangrenous sometimes a past could be so poisonous and toxic there may be relationships that are so abusive that sometimes you have to amputate I'm not denying that there is a role in life sporadically occasionally rarely for total amputation but that's always going to be a cost when you amputate you're missing an arm when you amputate there's phantom pain that can be tremendous when you try to simply get rid of the your past it's like a computer program that you try to delete there will always be bits and pieces hanging around there so in reality when we look at our past whatever our past is the issue is not amputation the issue is to reclaim it to capture it to sublimate it to elevate it to use it not to ignore it and maybe that is what Rashi is suggesting with the notion if the Rambam is suggesting conformity follow the rules Rashi is adding not not not replacing of course Rashi is adding the idea that within that commitment to conformity Kriya Shem be an individual understands your uniqueness do not try to say I got to be like everybody else in every respect sir fashion as an individual that is why in the panorama of Kali Israel Ashkenazim Sephardim different types of Ashkenazi with the German Hungarian different type of polish casitas slighted Moroccan Tunisian Algerian Syrian whatever it would be Iraqi so you might look at that as a tea Soren why is there so much disunity well when he turns into cinema screen on the name of enemy that is been but intrinsically there is a beauty in the diversity of Aveda session when there's a common commitment to Torah the Midrash itself says a garden is more beautiful when there are different types of flowers in the garden then if there's just one type of rose there are Gardens that just have let's say one red rose you know but most of us see a beauty in different colors and different textures that's the beauty of a Kali Israel when we're committed to the Torah but at the same time we foster individuality and that is well just and here with the final point that is why tribes are so important you know people I think I may have discussed this the freeway for repeating it you know the Torah makes a big about tribes you know tribes have their own portion of lands they have their own miss seein they have their own flags they have their own formation in the desert now we don't have a tribal consciousness today because most of us do not know what Chavous we belong to other than Kohanim Levine but tribes were were a big deal in fact that is why the luggage forgiver about extradition right the tribe of Benjamin refused to extradite a criminal to the other tribe wars were fought over the notion of tribes almost like a civil war it was a civil war like the tribes regarded themselves as separate sovereign states just like in the Civil War the American Civil War so the question is why are tribes important isn't the only thing that's important that we're Jews don't we have enough things that we fight over we haven't oh I'm a yummy you soccer your zvolen you know why our tribe is important but the answer is exactly this point because acaba who is making the point that every tribe had its own personality had its own Darris in a vote as a Shem they're all surrounding the Michigan because the service of God is the center appoint center for a point of all of their activities but Hashem does not want sameness Jim does not one conformity Hashem wants the individuality the individuality of tribes and by extension every single individual as well and therefore it could very well be that although on some level this is almost a contradiction but both perspectives are valid the notion of obedience to the single law is the teletrac shifts you want a relationship with God Hashem gave you the rules you better follow them or you can't come in you cannot come into a relationship with this Jelena without following the a bursters rules but at the same time within that commitment there has to be the notion of individuality serving Hashem in your way and indeed as parents that is really our primary responsibility what does Melek say Cohn Oakland are our P Darko one of the most important sukham in how you educate people train a child according to his way and the Vilna Gaon writes and this is how the pus work is commonly understood that every person has a unique personality a unique talent the unique ability a special way of viewing the world and the purpose of education is not to superimpose a rigid one-size-fit-all on this person but to bring out the uniqueness that is already imminent in their understanding and give them the tools to become what it is they already are in the depths of their being right and that could be the perspective of Korea TM be an individual it's very very difficult in there it just saw maybe a little bit more so because there is a tremendous stress in some segments of the religious world on what you might call an excessive conformity and the like we don't want to break rank so to speak we want to have a unified front and on one hand that that can be very very important but it can also squelch the inner soul of a person that needs to find an expression of its unique way of being Mercosur to the rebandage level so as we enter the month of redemption may all of us be attuned to have that inner redemption within ourselves within our children within our students to discover the uniqueness of our neshama and the particular way that we connect to our color swirl [Music]